NDA Early Years

Our three-tiered Early Childhood Development program for boys and girls starts with Pre-Kindergarten at 2 years 9 months and moves through two levels of Kindergarten until age 6. The hands-on, developmental program delivers a values-based education incorporating technology, environmental responsibility, cultural appreciation, specials including world languages, art, and music and provides access to our new mini makerspace exploration center.

NDA Lower School

Our co-educational Lower School program for grades 1-5 offers families a mission-driven, values-based education providing a nurturing environment of challenging academics, favorable student-to-teacher ratios, specialty classes that include art, music and world languages, and use of a newly upgraded science lab and brand new STEAM makerspace.

NDA Middle School

The Academy’s co-educational Middle School program for grades 6-8 provides challenging course work in language arts, science, math, and world languages and scheduling to meet individual needs based on learning readiness. The REACH program provides advanced work in math and English for those who qualify. The newly upgraded science lab and brand new STEAM Makerspace were specially designed to meet the needs of middle school students as they prepare for a future in the global economy.

NDA Upper School

The Academy of Notre Dame is the region's only all-girls high school with a rich history of empowering and educating young women since 1854. Our rigorous and supportive academic environment in small class settings provide real-life applications where young women are valued as individuals, challenged to achieve, encouraged to speak their minds, and empowered to lead. The outstanding STEAM- and humanities-focused academics have led our graduates to 100% college acceptance and more than $25 million in renewable merit scholarships since 2015.

Admissions

Thank you for exploring the possibilities that exist for you or your child at The Academy of Notre Dame. We invite you to click through these links to gather the information you are seeking about the Academy or to contact us at 978.649.7611, EXT. 327 or admissions@ndatyngsboro.org.

Freshmen Success Program

Far too often students find themselves on the brink of high school without the tools they need to succeed. A child may be very intelligent, but lack fundamental skills that will prevent them from achieving success. These skills don’t necessarily come naturally; instead they must be taught, practiced, and reinforced year-after-year. That's where the Freshmen Success Program comes in here at the Academy of Notre Dame. The program focuses on a mastery of these five skills to ensure a more successful high school experience for the student:

Listening

There are some surprising and not-so-surprising ways to improve listening skills. Eye contact and other physical responses such as nodding will improve listening as well as asking questions and joining discussions. Good posture and taking notes can also be helpful as it engages the body to stay alert.

Organization

Learning how to organize oneself is essential. Setting an assignment tracking system for short and long term assignments helps students plan time efficiently. Take a look at your student’s backpack and notebooks. Are they well-kept and in good repair? Is work separated according to subject matter? These can be eye-opening clues to your student’s organizational skills. There are many methods of organization and what works for one student may not work for every student. Your child should experiment with different approaches until they find one that is a good fit for their needs.

Study Habits

Preparing for exams can be anxiety producing for students, but good study skills can help to manage anxiety, increase understanding, and produce higher scores. Setting up a specific space for homework completion, scheduling a homework time, and breaking down work into manageable sections all play a part in building good study competencies. To improve retention students can preview texts for an overview, mark paragraphs to document what they understand and what they don’t, review notes from the day’s classes, and write out information.

Cognitive Tasks

Increasing the depth of understanding from simple comprehension to analysis and synthesis is critical in today’s world. To do so, students must be asked to move from the viewpoint of a book, article or media position so that they are able to see bias, differentiate between fact and opinion, relate information to other known information, and apply knowledge to new situations.

Leadership

Taking ownership, speaking your mind, motivating and persuading groups, controlling emotions and problem solving to achieve goals are all leadership skills. These are developed through empowerment and confidence building. Leadership is taught by providing opportunities to take on projects and manage groups, and being supported by oversight and interaction of adult mentors. Encouraging your student to get involved with projects that motivate them will help bring out their own leadership qualities.

The Freshmen Success Program includes an assessment of student progress in each of these areas and support is provided if weaknesses are identified.